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Police moved quickly in first hours of search for Jessica Ridgeway

By Jeremy P. MeyerThe Denver Post

Posted:
10/12/2012 11:39:35 PM MDT

Updated:
10/12/2012 11:39:39 PM MDT

Westminster Police Chief Lee Birk, accompanied by state and local law enforcement officials, announces at a briefing Friday afternoon that the body found in Arvada was positively identified as Jessica Ridgeway, the 10-year-old girl missing since Oct. 5 at 8:30 a.m. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

WESTMINSTER — In the hours after police first learned that Jessica Ridgeway hadn't made it to school Oct. 5, police officers and investigators quickly and deftly pored through information about the missing child.

They searched through residences near her home and open spaces, talked with neighbors and classmates, interviewed teachers, talked to Missouri police and even tracked down a bus driver whose route went through Jessica's neighborhood.

They found nothing — only the consistent and terrifying facts that a 10-year-old girl walking to her neighborhood school never made it.

That morning, Jessica had called a neighbor boy at 8:25 a.m., asking whether he would be walking to school that day. The two usually walked down Moore Street and through an open space every morning to Witt Elementary.

The boy said he would wait for Jessica. But as the minutes went by, Jessica didn't arrive. Jessica's mother — who works the night shift — reported seeing her daughter leave the house at about 8:30 a.m. wearing a black-and-pink jacket, blue jeans, purple eyeglasses and fuzzy boots and carrying a backpack with the word "Victorious" etched on the back.

At 8:40 — 10 minutes before the school bell rings — Jessica had not arrived. The boy climbed into a car with his father and headed to school, according to dispatch tapes from Westminster police.

The mother reportedly slept through phone calls from the school that were intended to alert her about Jessica's unexcused absence. The mother later in the afternoon began searching for her daughter, going to relatives' homes and her daughter's frequent haunts before calling police at about 4:30 p.m.

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Police first went to the family home. Officers went to Witt Elementary. They found the boy who usually walks with Jessica — who at first told officers that he had walked with her that day and saw her enter the school building. He later realized that he had mixed up the days.

They talked with Jessica's teacher, a teacher's aide, her best friend, her grandmother and aunt. They talked to neighbors and worked feverishly to find her father in Missouri — finally learning that he had been at work all day.

They searched stores and parks where Jessica liked to climb a tree or hide. They went through culverts. The Westminster police's K-9 unit couldn't be activated, so they accepted assistance from Adams County.

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